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Stranger Things

Why Young Men Are Falling Even Further Behind

For as long as society has existed, it's always been a given that men had an advantage by simply just being male. But in the past 5 years or so, things have changed, and changed fast. These days many young men find themselves falling further behind in a surprisingly diverse set of ways. In this episode we explore why this is happening and what some solutions could be.
According to that video, the situation changed at least 25 years ago.

I am an African-American Boomer who was in the vanguard of integration right after the Civil Rights Act. I remember very well what it was like to be in a newly integrated classroom in the South with white classmates and white teachers. I distinctly felt the air of "you don't belong here." My first white teacher, for instance, moved me and another black child to the corner of the room farthest from her and ignored us for the rest of the year. What I see to day is young white boys being ignored that same way by their female teachers, while the girls are noticed, praised, encouraged, and empowered. I believe that white boys today are responding to the same marginalization that black boys have always been subjected to.

I also think there are similarities in the responses of black boys marginalized by race and white boys marginalized by gender. Some are clear similarities, such as higher drop out rates, lower rates of college attendance, and less success in the job market. Black youth in the inner cities are in contact with certain specific factors such as gangs that direct them toward common crime, but white boys are (in my opinion) more likely to suffer in isolation....which in extremes can result in the sudden violence of a school shooting. But I think both cases of these boys "crashing out" are different only because black boys in the inner cities and white boys in the suburbs have different directions to go under the same impetus.
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Malevolent vs. benevolent dispositions and conservative political ideology in the Trump era

And what exactly constitutes "due consideration" within the deciding process according to your epistemological estimation?
You know...thinking about choices and choosing the one you like best.

These flowery, pseudo intellectual word salad responses are getting you nowhere.
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Ezra Klein: Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way

I don't understand why it troubles y'all so much to admit that the man was smart and successful.
He started his own PAC when he was 18 and look at it now.
He was good at what he did. You can't admit it without putting an asterisk by it
Charlie Kirk was very smart and successful and he was quite good at what he did.

What he did was not debate, though. Not in any formal sense. He was a showman and I know that gets a bad connotation but that’s what he did. His content wasn’t meant to persuade, it was preaching to the already agreeing choir.
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Fitness/Diet Accountability Thread

I'd like to join in.

My doctor has me doing physical therapy exercises daily and an additional 15 minutes of exercise each night, slowly increasing.

I'm supposed to be following anti-inflammatory diet and low-fodmap.

I want to loose weight, but I also need to increase muscle tone and muscle mass. Increases have to happen carefully due to my condition.

I am physically limited due to myopathy, which is sometimes worse than others. I have pay attention to how I'm feeling and make decisions about what to do based on that as it changes.
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Ezra Klein: Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way

So he did what he was good at, there's nothing wrong with that
'Mate, that's not debate. That's over rehearsed, soap box, lowest common denominator, low quality, mundane rhetoric'

'Ah, but's he's very good at it'.

Well...OK then.
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Don Trump Tilts at Windmills: Rescinds All Offshore Wind Energy Areas in the US; current leases up for review

And yet both Germany and the US has less coal generation now than a decade ago. Coal is energy dense and has a low cost per BTU as compared to natural gas. Natural gas is on the pricey side, and once was mostly used for peaking stations for that reason and because the turbines can be spun up fairly quickly. It also doesn't have as much pollution issues as coal.

Energy density isn't something we cooked up. it's a real thing and it has an impact.

The most energy dense source of electricity isn't fossil fuels, it's a pellet of fuel grade uranium as big as the end of your thumb. It's the rough equivalent of 1 US ton of coal (call it 0.907 metric tonnes). Think of the amount of CO2 that would cut. 1 US ton of coal should produce about 3.67 US tons of CO2. So if the priority is reducing CO2 from electricity production, nuclear is the way to go. Somehow I doubt the critics of nuclear power are doing the bidding of fossil fuel producing companies.
You gloss over how much of an investment it is to create the infrastructure to extract that high energy density. When the cost for new power plants, decomissioning them a few decades down the line and the operating costs in the meantime (including repairs, upgrades and waste disposal) are factored in, nuclear power is far more expensive than renewables.
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Faith/Works

God is a Judge. And if anyone thinks they will pass through the Judge to Heaven based on anything other than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, or they add anything to it, they will go to hell.

Christ alone, by grace alone, by faith alone
In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in what Jesus accomplished through the cross is by becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law (Acts 21:20).
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Another look at the moon landing.

-​

I will say they covered all areas in this deception, even finding Streptococcus mitis. I wonder how it escaped from the first mission to get out into the moons environment.

This deception keeps getting stranger and stranger
Plus the quarantining of the astronauts, because they may have unknown pathogens that could have been brought back from the Moon.

Evolution in full use here.
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The Nobel Peace Prize went to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado - why not Trump? He's solved 8 wars!

Sure if you only focus on one single policy position he managed to get right (so far).

It’s a bit silly to reward someone with the Nobel Peace Prize for ending a war they never stopped supplying weapons to while their own country is splitting at the seams with self inflicted social unrest, hatred and division.
There are many policy actions involving wars that Trump has gotten right. Trump being Trump, he takes more credit than he might be due. However, make no mistake, many of Trump's actions have shortened wars and saved many lives.
======
We have and will continue to debate tariff policy and domestic policy, and step toward autocracy elsewhere. This is a thread about Trump's role in war and peace.
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Are the Jews Israel, or is the church Israel? Or does it depend on the context of the passage?

If you believe that we believing gentiles have "joined" Israel, then this question must be asked.

So which of the 12 tribes do we gentiles belong to, and which of the 12 apostles (11 Matthias) will be in charge of us (Matthew 19:28)?
As I stated in the OP. NT believers both Jew and gentile joined OT believers as Ephesians states

Ephesians 2: 15 .......for to make in himself of two one new man, so making peace. 16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

I don't believe we have "joined" Israel because Israel consists of believers and unbelievers, unless your using Israel symbolically like the NT does occasionally to speak of believers only. Remember what my OP is about? This is why we believers both OT and NT are called by a new name. The New Jerusalem. I have no idea what you are talking about with your question. That's probably why I am not a covenant theologian.
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Morality without Absolute Morality

I haven't used ANY term yet in. ............. isolation .................
You did. Torture and murder. You implied I thought that, because it's a relative matter (killing in the context as described), then there could be a morally acceptable murder.
Nope. You're still reading into what I've said and telling me that what you think I've implied...
Then nail something to the mast for heaven's sake...
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Should Trump have been banned from running for president?

Perfect example of why nobody believes the left.
Lots of people believe the left.
Absurd statements like this.
I guess that you weren't paying attention to the conversation. I was making a point. He claimed all progressives were Democrats which is as wrong as my statement.
You seriously believe that almost a hundred million Americans are NAZI.
Hmmm, you don't read well. I didn't say, "all Republicans are Nazis".
This is why you lose credibility—just made up garbage.
At least I can read.
There is no reasoning or dialogue with this. You either have no idea what a NAZI is, or have never met an actual Republican.
My brother, my father, myself, and my best friend are or were Republicans.
My dad fought them in WW2. He was not a NAZI.
Nope, he was antifascist.
Let's approach it with the same contorted logic:
All Communists are Democrats. Phew. Glad we cleared that up.
Take that logic and reread my posts. You might learn something.
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Trump sends troops to the 'warzone' of Portland...

I of course do not condone violence in the name of protest.

I also wonder at the wisdom of the way you've tried to cast this?
Trump's doing this to distract from the Epstein files he promised to release, and to generate a 'tough guy' image and photo-op.
That's it.

That ICE or immigrants are somehow involved is peripheral to the whole exercise.
It's just more Demagoguery 101 on display: more 'othering' as sociologists put it.

I hope the democratic protests in Portland this weekend are peaceful - and that violent extremists do not tarnish the objectives of this fun Frog-protest meme.
Sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me.
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The Nobel Peace Prize went to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado - why not Trump? He's solved 8 wars!

Sure if you only focus on one single policy position he managed to get right (so far).

It’s a bit silly to reward someone with the Nobel Peace Prize for ending a war they never stopped supplying weapons to while their own country is splitting at the seams with self inflicted social unrest, hatred and division.
The peace prize is often awarded for one very huge step toward peace. Didn't Begin and Sadat get for it their treaty, which led a peace treaty, Egypt recognizing the state of Israel, and then the assassination of Sadat.

Carter brokered the peace but was much more humble than Trump. Carter eventually did get the peace for a body of work promoting world peace. Google Search
===========
Trump getting the award on 2026 or even 2027 for his part in promoting peace in several regions would be consistent with the Nobel committee's treatment of Carter.
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Are the Jews Israel, or is the church Israel? Or does it depend on the context of the passage?

Daniel Martinovich said:
I am not of either of the extremes. One of which you are articulating.
What extreme am I articulating? Either the Church has replaced Israel, or it has not. There is no between.

I guess we need to define to one another what we mean by replacement theology. I define it as the Jews are cursed and the gentiles take their place. But I believe nothing of the sort. More Jews got saved on the day of Pentecost than the number of Jews that attended Jesus's trial. It was Jews, 10's of thousands of them that spread the word into the Roman Empire. Believing Jews probably numbered in the 100's of thousands by the time the first century ended. How is that cursed? How is that replaced?

What is it that you believe replacement theology teaches?

Then there is another word we need to define. The word church. What do you think that means because the scripture says in Acts 7:38:
This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

I take it you don't mean the church is some institution like the Catholic denominations because that scripture says believers have always been the church. I mean it's almost like you're trying to replace the church that has always existed with ethnic Israelis. Many of whom are the church but as you clearly state:
All who want to be saved have to accept the Messiah. That was the truth in OT and it is the truth now.

I think you need much more clarity in your doctrine.


And Israel being back as a nation in 1948 is fulfilment of the modern Israel.
I agree that modern Israel is a fulfillment of some of the Bible's prophecy.


Daniel Martinovich said:
Millions of Jew, Arabs, Syrians, Egyptians coming to their savior Jesus and that influence transforming the region.
. Yes, they are. But that does not mean the Church has replaced Israel.
But what does it mean? Because it is physically impossible for the church that by definition means the saved by faith to replace ethnic Israelis who are both the saved and unsaved. That would go for any nation. The church cannot replace any nation because any nation has both the saved and the unsaved living in it. I think your doctrine needs a lot of work and subscribing it to some end of the world apocalyptic scenario just won't cut it. That's like cheating. It does not count. My op is about that subject remember.
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Should Trump have been banned from running for president?

All progressives are democrats.

That's not true either. This ignores third party voters; or those who abstain from voting altogether.

It's true that, by and large, progressives are going to vote Democrat rather than Republican. For reasons already explained in this thread. I vote Democrat, not because I'm a Democrat or even really like the Democratic Party--I vote Democrat because I'd rather choose bland tofu than literal poison.

The only candidate I've genuinely been interested in the past few election cycles is Bernie Sanders, an Independent who has run on the Democratic ticket.

There are very few Democrats that I am genuinely enthused about. Most are milquetoast centrists who are more interested in maintaining the current neo-liberal status quo, and lack any serious backbone to fight against corruption, systemic racism, and plutocracy.

-CryptoLutheran
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JPPT1974's Daily Devotions

JPPT1974's Thurs Thoughts 10/23/2025:
Boundaries are meant to really
Prevent us from crossing lines
As long as we don't get in trouble.
God didn't want us to get in trouble
Or do something we may later regret that
We can't take back and only God
Sent Jesus to come and paved the way for eternity
Knowing our sins are forgiven but also that
Needing to live Godly and Christ like lives if we
Are to remember we are only in this world temporary.
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